A chemical formula is not a chemical name, and it contains no words. These are limited to a single typographic line of symbols, which may include subscripts and superscripts. Examples of other chemical formulae for butane are the empirical formula C 2H 5, the molecular formula C 4H 10 and the condensed (or semi-structural) formula CH 3CH 2CH 2CH 3.Ī chemical formula (plural: formulae) is a way of presenting information about the chemical proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound or molecule, using chemical element symbols, numbers, and sometimes also other symbols, such as parentheses, dashes, brackets, commas and plus (+) and minus (−) signs. H − C | H H | − C | H H | − C | H H | − C | H H | − H Structural formula for butane. The form of aluminium sulfate hexadecahydrate is Al 2(SO 4) 3♱6 H 2O. Al 2(SO 4) 3 Aluminium sulfate has the chemical formula Al 2(SO 4) 3. Not to be confused with the 2-D graphical method of showing atomic spatial relationships called a structural formula.
